12 January 2018, Paris - Last week, Emmanuel Macron announced a future law against the spreading of "fake news". By aiming for a rather cynical announcement effect, his proposals exemplify an actual lack of interest for a matter which, however, needs to be addressed seriously. The spreading of "fake news" as a symptom of distortion in public debates is caused by the commercial surveillance system of the big platforms - with which the established political parties perfectly got along so far.

Paris, 6 November 2017 — On 26 October, the European Parliament as a whole decided to end its debate about the future ePrivacy Regulation. Its position already adopted on 19 October by the leading Civil Liberties committee was thus confirmed. Now, governments of the Member States and representatives of the European Parliament will negotiate in order to find a compromise in form of a final text. Let's review the first step of legislation which has come to an end.

Paris, 18 December 2017 - La Quadrature du Net decided to extend its yearly support campaign started on November 14th. As a matter of fact, the intended goal of 320 000 euros to pay for the year 2018 is far from being achieved: thus far, we've reached 50% of the funds needed. To help us defending human rights in the digital age, support La Quadrature du Net : donate and share !

Paris, 14 November 2017 — At a time when attacks on our rights and freedoms on the Internet come stronger and stronger, and the debates we have to conduct are ever more complex and numerous, we more than ever all need tools to understand, communicate and act on our fundamental rights, a freer Internet, and greater respect for our privacy. We need tools like La Quadrature du Net.

Paris, 6 November 2017 – In 2016, the Création law established a new right to use the image of national estates, such as the Chambord castle, the Louvre or the Élysée palaces. This provision allows their administrators to control the commercial use of images of these emblematic buildings and to demand license fees for those images. Considering how this measure threatens our legitimate rights to use our cultural heritage, Wikimedia France and La Quadrature du Net have attacked the implementing decrees applying this law, and raised a Question prioritaire de Constitutionnalité (priority constitutionality question)1. In a decision dated 25 October 20172, the Council of State accepted to transfer the matter to the Constitutional Council, considering the demand to be founded on new and serious grounds.

1. A French-specific procedure, the only possibility to challenge the constitutionality of a law is to ask the French Council of State (Conseil d'État, the French supreme administrative court) to accept the procedure and pass it on to the Constitutional Council (Conseil constitutionnel).

3 October 2017 - In March, more than 31 European Community Networks (CNs) wrote an open letter to EU policy-makers, stressing the need for an adaptation of the European legal framework aimed at helping these citizen-driven initiatives flourish, thus supporting alternative, democratic and sustainable ways to meet the goals of broadband policies. But rather than opening the door to a much-needed diversification of the telecom ecosystem, European governments only seek to reinforce the dominant positions of incumbent players. As the EU gets closer to a deal over the future of European telecom regulation, the EU Parliament must resist the pressure and reaffirm its commitment to the public interest.

Paris, 25 September 2017 - Last Thursday, the French Ministry of Interior ordered two Indymedia websites, one in Nantes and the other in Grenoble, to take down an anonymous tract claiming responsibility for fire arson in a police hangar the previous night. According to the government, the hosted text constitutes a "provocation to terrorism". The two Indymedia sites decided to take down the litigious content, in order to avoid being put on the secret blocking list sent by the government to major ISPs in France to censor websites. While the text has also been relayed on the websites of traditional news outlets, the latter have apparently not been subject to the government's takedown request.

Paris, 11 July 2017 - The last discussions on the draft on the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) before the summer break will take place today and we can only hope for very few changes before the vote on 11 September. The current trend is catastrophic: Pilar del Castillo, the main rapporteur known for her ties with large telcos, is leading to a world of monopolies were very few telcos (3 or 4, she may hope!) would share the whole EU market on optic fiber and radio spectrum. Very few latitude will be allowed to the national regulatory authorities (NRAs) to regulate the market and ensure that the core values also promoted by the European Union will be protected.

Paris, 14 june 2017 — For some time, political authorities are trying to question the technical and legal protections guaranteed by encryption tools. To oppose these dangerous proposals, the Observatoire des Libertés et du Numérique (Freedoms and Digital Observatory)1 publishes its position on the defence of the right to encryption, a tool indispensable to protect freedoms in the digital age.

Paris, 7 June 2017 — The future of the decentralised nature of the Internet is at stake with the negotiations on the European Electronic Communications Code. La Quadrature du Net publishes its first voting lists on amendments that have been tabled in committees1 and refers to the factsheets (pdf) drafted by netCommons. As anticipated, the lobbying of the telcos has been very useful with many amendments - especially from the right wing - that aim to protect oligopolistic positions of major telcos, undermining any attempt of openess for new actors and rights of users.

1. ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) is the committee responsible for the text and IMCO (Internal market and consumer protection) is the associated committee. See also the procedure file on the European Parliament's website.

Paris, 22 May 2017 — As the EU Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission enter the dark rooms of trialogues on the WIFI4EU draft regulation, European community networks and the open-wifi community wanted to remind them of the importance of the inclusion of all actors in the development of local connectivity.

Paris, 11 April 2017 — La Quadrature du Net publishes a position paper co-drafted with the FDN Federation and presented during the stakeholders meeting organised by the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) on 14 March 2017 in Brussels.

LQDN is publishing here an op-ed by Okhin.

Paris, 10 April 2017 — Online video platforms (most notably YouTube and Facebook) have surpassed television in audience count, making these media extremely important in terms of how they represent society. They constitute a place of public expression, run by private companies, which permit many persons, cultures, subcultures, and social groups to exist, to communicate among themselves, and to be seen. Certainly there are initiatives and free alternatives, but none of them can hope to reach the level of presence of these platforms.